Atop the hill, Colonel Bleech took a toasted English muffin from his orderly, who had crawled with it so as not to be seen by the recruits down in the little valley across the muddy stream. The colonel thought it would have been highly unmili-tary, when staging a punishment, to be seen receiving a toasted English muffin with sweet butter and jam. So he ordered the young aide to crawl to him.

Bleech saw the terrified young men below him waiting on his words. It was good to hang them out like this, make each one think, if possible, that he was the one going to be executed. Bleech knew full well that you executed people, not so

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much of because of what they had done, but because of what you didn't want the survivors to do.

What the young recruits did not know was that for every nose broken, every groin shattered, there had been a plan.

Those with permanent damage were scheduled for inside work, after the "great day" came. But Colonel Bleech never broke a limb or caused permanent damage to anyone on his combat squads. He disguised this cunning with feigned rage. Nothing like being angry to hide the fact that you were a thinking man.

"Treason," boomed Bleech, taking a buttery bite from the muffin. His orderly was on the ground and a drop of melted butter landed on his forehead. Bleech dismissed the man who crawled back down the far side of the hill. Bleech let the word "treason" hang out above the valley below as he finished the muffin, licking the sweet red jam from his lips. It was a British jam and he didn't like British jams. Not enough sugar or tartness. The whole thing tasted like dental cement.

Bleech slipped his notes from his neatly pressed shirt pocket. "We have all been betrayed. And not just to the Russians or the Chinese. No ... worse. We were betrayed to those who can do us the most damage, who can destroy everything we have worked and trained for. Treason."